HID announces its 2024 State of the Security Industry Report, which gathered responses from 2,600 partners, end users, and security and IT personnel worldwide, across a range of job titles and organization sizes representing over 11 industries.

The 2024 State of Security Report delves into the underlying concerns driving upcoming innovations and the technologies that underpin them, helping security leaders to be proactive in adapting to evolving challenges. Conducted in the fall of 2023, this year’s survey reveals six themes, as follows:

1. Mobile identity is expected to be ubiquitous in the next five years

Given the widespread use of mobile devices, momentum continues to build around their use in support of identity. Within the next five years, surveyed end users state that nearly 80% of organizations will deploy mobile IDs. Industry partners are even more optimistic in their outlook, stating that 94% of their customers will have deployed mobile IDs.

• Multi-Factor Authentication is widespread, despite slow but growing implementation of Zero Trust

More than 83% of end users respondents said their organization currently uses Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), mainly due to the vulnerabilities of passwords. For many, this represents the first step on the longer journey toward Zero Trust, an approach to security that calls for organizations to maintain strict access controls and to never trust, always verify anyone – internal or external – by default. Zero Trust has been implemented in 16% of organizations with over 100,000 employees and 14% in those with up to 10,000 employees, according to the survey.

With MFA being widespread, the eventual end of passwords is imminent. The creation of new standards such as FIDO (Fast Identity Online), which uses “standard public key cryptography techniques to provide phishing-resistant authentication,” will pave the path to new and more secure authentication options that will be part of a more robust Zero Trust architecture.

• Sustainability becomes a growing driver in business decisions

Among HID’s survey respondents, sustainability continues to rank high as a business priority, with both end users and partners rating its importance at a “4” on a 1-to-5 scale. Additionally, 74% of end users indicate the importance of sustainability has grown over the past year, and 80% of partners reported the trend growing in importance among their customers.

As such, there will likely be a continued emphasis on solutions that minimize energy use, reduce waste, and optimize resource usage. A shift to cloud-based solutions and increased use of mobile devices are two clear strategies to reach these sustainability goals.

• Biometrics continues its impressive momentum

In this year’s survey, 39% of installers and integrators said their customers are using fingerprint or palm print, and 30% said they’re using facial recognition. The momentum continues to build as 8% plan to test or implement some form of biometrics in the next year and 12% plan to do so in the next three to five years.

• Identity management points up to the cloud

Nearly half of end users are moving to cloud-based identity management, with 24% already using it and another 24% in the process of implementing such systems. Industry partners say their customers face several hurdles here, including existing reliance on legacy/on-prem equipment (28%), lack of budget (24%), and cloud-based identities simply not being a business priority (21%).

• The rise of artificial intelligence for analytics use cases

Conversations about AI have come to dominate the business landscape, and many security professionals see AI’s analytic capabilities as the low-hanging fruit to enhance identity management. Rather than looking to AI to inform the entirety of the security system, it’s possible to leverage data analytics as a way to operationalize AI in support of immediate outcomes. In this scenario, 35% of end users reported they will be testing or implementing some AI capability in the next three to five years, with 15% already using AI-enabled biometrics.

CyberArk has released a new global research report that shows how siloed approaches to securing human and machine identities are driving identity-based attacks across enterprises and their ecosystems.

The CyberArk 2024 Identity Security Threat Landscape Report provides unique perspectives on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) boosts cyber defenses as well as attacker capabilities; increases the pace at which identities are created in new and complex environments; and highlights the scale of identity-related breaches affecting organizations.

The report, which surveyed 2,400 cybersecurity decision makers in more than 18 countries including the UAE, found that 99% of UAE organizations had two or more identity-related breaches in the past year, indicating the scale of the new challenges.

Cyber Risk Rises as Machine Identity Security Treated Differently to Humans

While the quantity of both human and machine identities is growing quickly, the report found that security professionals globally rate machines as the riskiest identity type. In part due to widespread adoption of multi-cloud strategies and growing utilization of AI-related programs like Large Language Models, machine identities are being created in vast numbers. Many of these identities require sensitive or privileged access.

However, contrary to how human access to sensitive data is managed, machine identities often lack identity security controls, and therefore represent a widespread and potent threat vector ready to be exploited. Key findings of the report include:

• 99% of UAE organizations had two or more identity-related breaches in the past year.
• Machine identities are the #1 cause of identity growth in the UAE and are considered by respondents to be the riskiest identity type.
• 94% of UAE organizations expect identities to grow 3x or more in the next 12 months
• 28% of UAE organizations cited concerns over their software supply chain as a key concern for securing machine identities.

“The digital initiatives that drive organizations forward inevitably create waves of new human and machine identities. Because many of these identities require sensitive or privileged access it is imperative that businesses in the UAE gain a clearer understanding of the nature of this access and the attack surface it represents,” said Tom Lowndes, Director, Middle East at CyberArk. “Identity-centric breaches affect nearly all organizations, with most suffering multiple successful attacks; to address the extent of growing threats on identity that organizations face from an array of malign actors, it is key to build resilience on a new cybersecurity model that places identity security at its core.”  

Widespread Use of AI to Battle AI and Complacency Takes Hold

Consistent with CyberArk’s 2023 report, the 2024 Threat Landscape Report found that all organizations in the UAE (100% of those surveyed) are using AI in cybersecurity defense initiatives. Furthermore, the report predicts an increase in the volume and sophistication of identity-related attacks, as skilled and unskilled bad actors also increase their capabilities, including AI-powered malware and phishing. In related findings, the majority of respondents are confident that deepfakes targeting their organization won’t fool their employees.

• All UAE organizations surveyed have adopted AI-powered tools as part of their cyber defenses to some degree, with 35% using AI for advanced analytics and 31% addressing cyber skills and resource challenges with AI.
• 99% of UAE respondents expect AI-powered tools to create cyber risks including AI powered malware, phishing, data leakage from compromised AI models and deepfake scams.
• 83% are confident that their employees can identify deepfakes of their organizational leadership.
• 97% of UAE organizations surveyed have been a victim of a successful identity-related breach due to a phishing or vishing attack.
• 100% of UAE organizations increased their investment in identity-related products or services to some extent in the last 12 months as a result of a breach.

The full report offers further insight on what is behind human and machine identity growth, where related cyber risk lies and how AI is being used in cyber defenses. The report also details the consequences firms are facing from identity-centric cyber breaches and recommends methods to ensure that security practices keep up with organizational initiatives to reduce cybersecurity debt.

Study highlights the divide between AI leaders and AI laggards illustrating value of unified data approach.

NetApp released its second annual Cloud Complexity Report. The report looks at the experiences of global technology decision makers deploying AI at scale and shows a stark contrast between AI leaders and AI laggards. This year’s report provides global insights into progress, readiness, challenges, and momentum since last year’s report, what we can learn from both the AI leaders and AI laggards, and the critical role of a unified data infrastructure in achieving AI success.

“AI is only as good as the data that fuels it,” said Pravjit Tiwana, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Cloud Storage at NetApp. “Both the AI leaders and AI laggards show us that in the prevailing hybrid IT environment, the more unified and reliable your data, the more likely your AI initiatives are to be successful.”  

There is a Significant Divide Between AI Leaders and AI Laggards

The report found a clear divide between AI leaders and AI laggards across several areas including:

Regions: 60% of AI-leading countries (India, Singapore, UK, USA) have AI projects up and running or in pilot, in stark contrast to 36% in AI-lagging countries (Spain, Australia/New Zealand, Germany, Japan).

• Industries: Technology leads with70% of AI projects up and running or in pilot, while Banking & Financial Services and Manufacturing follow with 55% and 50%, respectively. However, Healthcare (38%) and Media & Entertainment (25%) are trailing.
• Company size: Larger companies (with more than 250 employees) are more likely to have AI projects in motion, with 62% reporting projects up and running or in pilot, versus 36% of smaller companies (with fewer than 250 employees).

Both AI leaders and AI laggards show a difference in their approach to AI:

• Globally, 67% of companies in AI-leading countries report having hybrid IT environments, with India leading (70%) and Japan lagging (24%).
• AI leaders are also more likely to report benefits from AI, including a 50% increase in production rates, 46% in the automation of routine activities, and a 45% improvement in customer experience.

“The rise of AI is ushering in a new disrupt-or-die era,” said Gabie Boko, Chief Marketing Officer at NetApp. “Data-ready enterprises that connect and unify broad structured and unstructured data sets into an intelligent data infrastructure are best positioned to win in the age of AI.”

AI Laggards Must Swiftly Innovate to Stay Competitive

Despite the divide, there is notable progress among AI laggards in preparing their IT environments for AI, but the window to catch up is closing rapidly.

• A significant number of companies in AI-lagging countries (42%) have optimized their IT environments for AI, including Germany (67%) and Spain (59%)
  

• Companies in some AI-lagging countries already report they see the benefits of a unified data infrastructure in place, such as:
  • Easier data sharing: Spain (45%), Australia/New Zealand (43%), Germany (44%)
  • Increased visibility: Spain (54%) and Germany (46%)

IT Costs and Data Security Emerge as Top Challenges but Won’t Impede AI Progress

Rising IT costs and ensuring data security are the two of the biggest challenges in the AI era, but they will not block AI progress. Instead, AI leaders will scale back, cut other IT operations, or reallocate costs from other parts of the business to fund AI initiatives.

• AI leaders will also increase their cloud operations (CloudOps), data security and AI investments throughout 2024, with 40% of large companies saying AI projects have already increased IT costs
• Year over year, “increased cybersecurity risk” jumped 16% as a top concern from 45% to 61%, while all other concerns decreased
• To manage AI project costs, 31% of companies globally are reallocating funds from other business areas, with India (48%), UK (40%), and US (35%) leading this trend.

Security, AI, and CloudOps Drive 2024 Cloud Investments

As global companies, whether AI leaders or AI laggards, increase investments, they are relying on the cloud to support their goals.

• Companies reported that they expect to increase AI-driven cloud deployments by 19% from 2024 to 2030.
• 85% of AI leaders plan to enhance their CloudOps automation over the next year.
• Increasing data security investments is a global priority, jumping 25% from 33% in 2023 to 58% in 2024.